Five Secrets From Author Nicole Evelina

Today we learn five of Nicole Evelina's secrets...even in her first paragraph we learn something about her :) And yes, I admit, I want to know how "that" happened. 

This is a fun post so keep on reading. 

Thanks for having me for a return visit, L.A. You wanted to know something about me...well, my first kiss was from soap star/singer Michael Damian (from the Young and the Restless and of “Rock On” fame). No one has managed to measure up yet! Admit it – you want to hear the story behind how that happened, don’t you?

Welcome back, Nicole. Please tell us Five Secrets we may not know about Been Searching for You or you, but will after today!

1) I never thought I’d write a romance. I actually swore I’d never write romance because I really disliked romance books for a long time – until I realized what I really hated was certain types of romance. Others are pretty darn good. But I still had one pet peeve: most heroines, especially in romantic comedies, are under 30. If there’s a wedding involved, it’s “OMG, I’m going to be 30 and not married!” As a 36-year-old single girl, allow me to smack you. So, what did I do? I went and wrote my own love story, one for those of us who are over 30 *gasp*, still single and still romantics at heart. I wrote it because I wanted to write the happily ever after I haven’t yet experienced.

2) The book came to life because of the Civil Wars songs “To Whom it May Concern” and “Dust to Dust.” They seem to be bookends to a love story to me, so I swore I’d write a book that began with the words “To Whom it May Concern” and ended with the words “Dust to Dust.” And I did.

3) Been Searching for You was the winner of the 2015 Romance Writers of America Great Expectations and Golden Rose contests. It also finaled in five other contests.

4) The title comes from a song called “The Search” by Setting Fires, a side project of Mat Devine, lead singer of Wrongchilde and the recently-retired band Kill Hannah. (You can listen to the song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FId5S2YGgmI) I picked it from the chorus:

I've been searching for you,
And I keep looking for you,
I've been searching for you,
Since the day,
Since the day that you were born,

FYI – The band Kill Hannah is actually mentioned in the book twice because they are from Chicago and their lyrics influenced some of the plot.

5) The book’s original title was He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not, but I think Been Searching for You better reflects the plot and Annabeth’s struggle to find her soul mate.

Blurb :

Annabeth is a hopeless romantic who believes in soul mates. In fact, she’s been writing to hers each year on her birthday since she was 16.

Now, at 34, she’s still holding out hope of finding Mr. Right even though he’d be fighting an uphill battle to gain her trust, thanks to a traumatic experience years before that’s left her unable to commit.

When Annabeth meets a handsome literature professor named Alex on her 34th birthday, she thinks her quest may finally be at an end. Things don’t quite go as planned, so Annabeth resolves to do everything she can over the next year to find the unknown recipient of her letters. But blind dates, meetup events and online singles sites have nothing on what fate has in store for her when a co-worker unexpectedly quits and Annabeth finds herself working in close quarters with both Alex and her long-ago ex, Nick.

Fighting her attraction to one and loathing for the other, Annabeth is forced to face all of her old insecurities while keeping an eye on a scheming frienemy who may derail her hopes and dreams.

Written in the tradition of Bridget Jones' Diary, Kim Gruenfelder’s A Total Waste of Makeup, and Melissa Pimental’s Love By The Book, Been Searching for You shows that love on the sweet side can exist for the modern girl, if only she’s willing to trust herself and search hard enough.

Buy Links: 

Pre-order Available May 10th 

Amazon |  Barnes & Noble | Smashwords  

Bio:

Nicole Evelina is an award-winning historical fiction and romantic comedy writer. Her upcoming novel, Been Searching for You (May 10), a romantic comedy, won the 2015 Romance Writers of America (RWA) Great Expectations and Golden Rose contests.

                              

She also writes historical fiction. Her debut novel, Daughter of Destiny, the first book of an Arthurian legend trilogy that tells Guinevere’s life story from her point of view, was named Book of the Year by Chanticleer Reviews, took the Grand Prize in the 2015 Chatelaine Awards for Women’s Fiction/Romance, won a Gold Medal in the fantasy category in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards and was short-listed for the Chaucer Award for Historical Fiction. Later this year, she will release Madame Presidentess (July 25), a historical novel about Victoria Woodhull, America's first female Presidential candidate, which was the first place winner in the Women’s US History category of the 2015 Chaucer Awards for Historical Fiction.

Nicole is one of only six authors who completed a week-long writing intensive taught by #1 New York Times bestselling author Deborah Harkness. Nicole has traveled to England twice to research the Guinevere’s Tale trilogy, where she consulted with internationally acclaimed author and historian Geoffrey Ashe, as well as Arthurian/Glastonbury expert Jaime George, the man who helped Marion Zimmer Bradley research The Mists of Avalon.

Nicole is a member of and book reviewer for The Historical Novel Society, and Sirens (a group supporting female fantasy authors), as well as a member of the Historical Writers of America, Women’s Fiction Writers Association, Romance Writers of America, the St. Louis Writer’s Guild, Women Writing the West, Broad Universe (promoting women in fantasy, science fiction and horror), Alliance of Independent Authors and the Independent Book Publishers Association.

Her website is http://nicoleevelina.com. 

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